Prodigies

by Angélica Gorodischer

  14. Windows

  If outside there were iron and bronze and sometimes porcelain doorknobs, inside there were curtains and silence, entrenched and almost never placid silence because there must be speech and almost certainly fury and vengeance, tempers that ricochet off children like another lofty secret to be ascertained as they grew into ostentatious gentlemen and haughty ladies, although they hoped to be svelte horsemen who went to war and damsels with wreaths of flowers in the parks with waterspouts, fountains, arbors, cobblestone paths, and murmuring sounds, which does not mean that silence exists or that it could be called anything other than absence; curtains still as marble, silk-like shields, a pretense and defense against the light, buckler and protection against indecent stares, and above all, vestments. To put up curtains has been a science since ancient times no less intricate for being domestic. When Madame Helena renovated the house on Scheller Street to take in boarders, Mr. Frenzen showed her workshop tables covered with all variety of poles, brackets, clasps, rings, tassels, hooks, cornices, pins, swags, overlap carriers, pulleys, and cords, to say nothing of fabric and cloth, the wares and textiles he kept pulling out of cabinets and unrolled from its bolts soft or heavy to the touch, mere ideas, a vision that she held and had yet to take form, standing because who wants armchairs and footstools while creating a solid exterior that at the same time must be friendly, a place one would wish to enter and live. Curtains in the boarding house of Madame Helena and the other houses on Scheller Street disrupt the windows more than they dress them up, some that only serve as veils and through which can be seen the light of a match at night or the shadow of every hero or villain hung on the gallows throughout history; curtains for nursing children and the faded mornings of illness but still luxurious, opulence and splendor to spare, hands that slide through pleats and which hide ever-equal folds and the slippery bodies of the dead who do not return but Luduv himself appears summertime sharp climbing grassy steps, where opaque desires and impassioned tears slide down, where in autumn grain is sown in the fields that imitate the wrinkles of old women, lines from the edge of the nose to the corner of the lips, the cracks of the dry hungry mistreated and still resentful earth that throws its children aside and sends them to serve a gigantic ill-tempered god; enveloped by winds of storm and war, bodies struck down by death’s diligent blow, gray creatures from the center of the earth, catastrophe-sized headlines in newspapers, the source of other machines, still others, salt-cellars and violins smashed to bits, unrecognizable picture frames of portraits and perhaps a barely audible moan, a splash of blood fresh from arteries, daily and difficult, an improbable and kindly bud, a breeze, madame, from lost gold. In the salons, dining rooms, libraries, and music rooms, the curtains overlap and overlay each other, they hide and protect, wool, silk, crepe, satin, velvet, golden cords, fringes, straps, and braids held by the inner frame; the brightest bedrooms try to reduce the shadow and dim the day, and children’s rooms display curious backlit figures with flutes, tambourines, sensible animals, and landscapes; the bathrooms have leaded or etched glass instead of curtains filling round or oval windows set high up whose only sash pivots and is held open by a hook on the wall with a chain that tarnishes with time; in kitchens the curtains are smooth and easy white cotton; and in the maids’ rooms they depend on rank, almost immobile hierarchies: if they exist, they are linen, without pleats, purpose, pampering, and if possible without sin.

  15. The Sun

  Halfway through the morning, Lola organizes, counts, and rolls out dough, while Katja and Wulda clean, Madame Helena rushes around with hard-backed notebooks where she enters income and expenses and work to do in the house because soon the season will change and it will be spring, while Miss Esther smiles, lit like a relief figure on a frieze by the light that enters the shop window and silhouettes the golden letters edged in black of “Miraflora” on the dark gray rug, because Mr. Celsus tells her quite seriously that it may seem like winter to her but not really, for winter is over. Perhaps it has ended and that gives her this shape and outline; perhaps the curtain will be raised over a parade of feet and hands and faces on the washed surfaces of streets, sidewalks, steep roofs, floors, the curve of all-new porcelain and silk, as if deflowered again, like the chatter of guessing games and charades of children who, while Lola contemplates the platters that have been served, arrive at midday with servants and shouts, pattering shoes and busy hands through the doorway, hungry, hot, thinking about the afternoon that lies ahead when the day is no longer gray but yellow.

  Because the sun came out at noon. It came out over a grayish world in a resentful winter and nothing could be done about it: in some houses the curtains were chastely closed because this sun, excessive, out of place and propriety, might fade the tapestries and worse, strike the skin on forearms and behind earlobes of protected and obedient girls inciting their thoughts, girls who transformed in that season like the sun, trading black kid gloves for itchy white lace gloves with tiny round silk-covered buttons at the wrist. The sun struck facades, excited shadows, split on edges, pushed borders; the light gave vigor to large rooms and shine to details on handrails on stairways. Maybe it was warmer, maybe it was not, but many women stopped, aware of themselves, too aware for a second or less, straightened their heads, eyes searching corners as if they might seek and find there the proof of a sacrilege, enchantment, or secret white light could illuminate the lives of everyone they knew and their own lives, the way a kinetoscope’s revelation evokes a little childlike noise in a darkened room; and many men disabused themselves of that presumption, the chill over what they had managed to flee without a trace, and frightened it away, amazed by their own strength, sure about the terrain they trod. Nevertheless, small thoughts ripe like grapes and like them in bunches, almost invincible, small wild juicy thoughts roiled like sparks, squatted like buttresses, climbed fiercely, flew bravely, slid down throats and rose up and out like bubbles, and this time mothers smiled and nursemaids cleared their throats.

  Which has to do with noise, obviously. Scheller Street held what Mill Alley never did: in the time of the fat merchant when the words of Novalis sang seductively to the intimate heat of bodies and the igneous heat of newly conceived land; when strong square houses were built and contours of dreams were transformed by stone and mortar, the alley harbored all manner of noises, squeals, shouts, blows, yells, whistles, dins, voices, and racket; women called out, men gave orders, children cried, beasts brayed, and cartwheels screeched and struck doorways, bread was kneaded, rugs were beaten, pots broke, and at times songs were sung in the kitchens and at towlines. But then silence came with a century, as if saying there was no reason for delusions, and asking for polish, cleanliness, reserve, and logic instead of vanity, contending that we will all be happy and have houses like these flanked by leafy trees, polished by diligent servants, from which our bedecked coaches will leave toward happiness; who could doubt it, riches, aircraft, dirigibles, dominions, pantelegraphs, all the marvels of life revealed without danger or pain. Silence is absence, heavy and grave, the absence of flesh, flesh and word, word and body, prudent resolve, deliberation, good manners, and the right gloves for every occasion. Madame Helena had tea in her rooms and Sophie Simeoni scolded her daughter ten meters above; the sun took its time, Miss Esther wore white, Mr. Pallud bent over a violin player seven centimeters high and gently brushed the plaid pants of the minuscule figure with his finger, young Gangulf drew circles on a sheet of paper, Madame Nashiru placed the pearls from the most recent shipment onto trays lined with midnight blue velvet or white silk, and, from the street, hidden in a doorway, the General spied on her.

  16. The Almost Violet Light

  Despite the sun’s insistence, day became night as fast as a thief, silently, no corner unexplored, meticulously reconnoiting the territory at first, then faster so it could finish as soon as possible. But for a moment the light wavered on pale surfaces as if it still wanted to reveal and reflect, although it did not last; a very brief moment that no one w
ould have noticed if it had not been precisely the light that made Katja see the sand fall from the garden wall, dissolve in water that erased the wall, leaving a hole without a single trace of anything having been there, showing her how Luduv could not be heard when he spoke quietly, at least with ears: a field of souls sowed with green stones that dissolved in water again, and arms and knives were lifted from the water with screaming, utter conflict, utter lies, utter wisdom from dreams, erosion, and the specter she was loath to see. Except that she was lost, captive of a merciless hand and distant voice: Katja belonged to two worlds and in both she was obliged to do the behest of other people, orders from Madame Helena in one world to which she was expressly indifferent but took pains to complete, and mandates from Luduv in the other world with her consent. As always things happened to her sight and hearing in the indecisive season with evasive winds and sun to evoke Luduv, leaning on a grainy wall or crouching at her side, yet despite this she kept polishing the mother-of-pearl handles of dessert knives with ashes moistened in olive oil: Luduv was saying why should you be afraid, you must go down, down deeper, confident all the way, I am here to help you rise but you have to go down, down, I can do nothing now, open the traps and let out the swarm, does the buzzing frighten you? No, it did not. The fragrant chamois went back and forth under prodigious fingers. Katja’s were long and slim, palms wide compared to those girl-like fingers, strong smooth hands, tight in the winter from the cold, unfortunately with split, peeling cuticles at times; Madame Helena wanted the nails cut square and kept clean, and Luduv made them sing, rubbing his own nails on them, like crickets, like cicadas; but fleshy and pink in summer, hands she paid no attention to when she heard sounds and Luduv held her in daydreams. And so the light left its watch and the sea of souls bellowed in a whirlpool and disappeared on the head of a pin. Katja wanted to call him, Luduv! but Wulda was watching. Although she was never sure what Wulda was watching.

  Luduv was gone. Splendid was the afternoon voice that had changed, heard in the doorways of stores, on the steps of offices, on high at the seafront, and in the aura of trees that arose without warning; only an occasional cabinetmaker or gardener who cared for wood was tipped off, watching, catching a hint of the land of childhood in their veins, knowing that roots awoke impatiently with buds, sweet offspring driven by water. But inside the houses, where walls and partitions unfolded, inconvenient, full of crannies to hide love, meaning, and revenge, soft cushions that embraced the body, doorways that trembled in storms, stained-glass windows with rosettes and ribbons that colored light without destroying it, no one felt the wood or sand, and the absence of light or its waning was so different each day that it provoked arguments between the ladies of the house and maids; it was only the sign to light the lamps and say it is now too late for children to still play on the sidewalks of Scheller Street in front of doorways and windows and beneath the poor trees that had not lost the blackish coating of winter. Mothers called to nursemaids: that’s enough, it’s time for them to come in and wash, they’ve had enough fun, enough insisting and begging and promising, they’ve played enough games, bring them in, light the entryways, wash their noses and hands, change their shoes, comb their hair and give them clean kerchiefs; and the nursemaids obeyed.

  In the moment of the almost violet light Miss Esther slowed her step, dressed in pure white without any color or jewelry or brooch or buckle or grace note to distract from the whiteness, returning to the house on Scheller Street thinking about the honest job of printer as the only treasure and even as a pretext to plan the impossible. But there was something more, something indistinct and nameless that shook when she cleaned out chests of drawers, rolled up the rug in her room in anticipation of summer, and bought a new piece of clothing and had to decide which old one it would replace; something that had happened in her home without a mother and with prayers, where her father dreamed and spoke both for pleasure and to tie her to that dream; something that she ought to recall and could not; something that at times seemed to have to do with austere, dark, almost bare rooms, with high ceilings and floors that creaked; something she had done or had tried to do. That was all: the memory became forgotten, forgotten since she was born, and like a strict taskmaster, it blocked her way. She could not force her way into the past, she could not look at it unless she wanted her flesh to become stone and salt, and no, not that. Memory had borders like countries, barriers, intricate passageways for which she did not know the password or she had lost it crossing one of these doorways and went astray, came to a stop in her own room in no way austere or cold or bare in the boardinghouse of Madame Helena Lundgren, everything blue, sky blue, snug and secure in winter, separated from the world up in the cold air, the colder the stronger to keep her from falling; windows open, the house, the street, the city, the world in summer a sounding box, echoing wall, mirroring water, singing landscape, golden frames for mysterious doors, decoy and disguise, and then she was helplessly weightless and no one fit where they belonged. Here the trail was lost, it was impossible to follow even the shadow of this suspicion about something that had perhaps never happened, which was not an event but an image on the polished surface of a door of a festive store and yet, yet; but now she did not know what she was trying to do with this venture and her shoeless white feet were taking her to the shadow, the moment, the insidious paw so silent as to be invisible, the night wrapping the bases of streetlights, night in the gutters and thresholds and in the jaws of gargoyles.

  17. The Fabulous Animals of the Moon

  Imagine an animal, ten, eleven animals, one hundred, too many, all the animals of all possible worlds, too many animals to count galloping across the plains of the moon: all the children in the houses on Scheller Street had heard about Count von Zeppelin and Co.’s dirigible, about trips around the world, but had not been able to learn anything more and essential, just what they wanted to hear, except by asking nursemaids or servants who could tell them nothing, since at dinner or practicing piano or during visits they could not ask and those who did not know it was forbidden got a freezing stare that promised punishment, the worst of all not being allowed to go out and play; little thoughts kept tight in pockets with the other children in the other houses on Scheller Street. All the children in the houses on Scheller Street imagined dirigibles as vast machines covered with sharp iron hair standing up like goosebumps, precise telescopes, toothed wheels, lances, and cords, jumping from star to star to take them to the moon where, like furious heroes, they would fight beings that came out of the night, as blurry and unthinkable as bodies that became restless only during fever; where, as triumphant spectators, they would watch parades of troops of lunary turtlets, schools of lunamatic shrewers, droves of lunacule buffalodonts, flocks of lunacious black vulturery, fighting with hoofs, horns, and claws, tongues covered with giant needles, leathery trunks and tails, killing and dying, winning and losing in simple and perfidious games like bouncing a little silver ball on the closed balconies of the houses on Scheller Street. All children, or perhaps not all, perhaps only the most bold or solitary or zealous or anxious had or sought a corner of the house somewhat like a cul-de-sac, like an eggshell where no one went, a noiseless corner where they could hide to try to put words together with balls of string, a hidden clearing in a jungle of curtsies, grown-up foolishness, contradictions, and shadows made with interlaced hands on a white wall, keys to enter the dark cave where all the tribe’s secrets were guarded, all of them, not a single one lost or deteriorated with the years, and this, although it was not one of the games they dreamed about at night or played during the day, depended precisely on those games in a more direct way impossible.